Friday, August 05, 2016

Path to Citizenship?

In 2013, the US naturalized 777,416 immigrants. The chart on uscis.gov indicates that the United States has naturalized well over a half million immigrants every year this decade.

Hillary Clinton's claim that there is no "path to citizenship" is a lie. The fact that the United States continues to have the most generous immigration systems on the planet proves Clinton to be a liar. (Not surprising for a person married to a convicted perjurer).

The problem we face isn't the lack of a "path to citizenship" but the fact that that millions of people are blatantly ignoring immigration laws which makes it much more difficult to define that path to citizenship.

In today's speech, Clinton made the claim that illegal immigrants pay some $13 billion into Social Security.

I need to point out that it is the employers who pay into social security.

The true statement that employers paid some $13 billion into social security.

Quite frankly, this same amount of money, if not more, would have been paid into the system on the behalf of US citizens if the employers hired US citizens instead of illegal immigrants.

I personally do not hire illegal immigrants. Many illegal immigrants appear to be part of a shadow economy and the people in the shadow economy work in cash and do not pay social security.

The claim that Republicans are anti-immigration is a blatant lie. We have a path to citizenship proven by the half million people who make it through that path each year.

The problem is that we don't have an effective path for denying citizenship.
As for deportations, If I were president, I would make enforcing visas a priority. A visa is a contract. People violating the terms of their visa show a contempt for contracts and the rule of law.

Hillary's statement that she would only enforce immigration laws in regards to violent offenders is horrible. We need to enforce visa laws to have an effective visa system. By openly declaring that she would not enforce Visa laws, Hillary has made it more difficult to have a liberal visa system.

Aggressive enforcement of visas is not anti-immigrant because it allows for a greater liberalization of visa laws. The idea that being granted a visa should be seen as a path to citizenship is absurd.

Quite frankly, since violating the terms of a visa shows contempt of law, I would say that people who grossly violate the terms of the visa should be kicked off the path to citizenship. Showing respect for contracts, including a visa contract, should be part of the path to citizenship.